NEWS
Students show support for a free Tibet
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by James Davison
Friday, April 9, 2004
Free Tibet Week, a weeklong event, came to a close Thursday.
The campaign focused on the country’s culture and a half-century long struggle for liberation from Chinese occupation.
A series of films were shown throughout the week, and the University of Wisconsin Students for a Free Tibet presented a keynote speaker.
According to Tenzin Kunsang, a UW senior and group member, Students for a Free Tibet is a worldwide organization with approximately 650 chapters, the majority of which are in the United States.
“We have been on this campus for a long time,” Kunsang said.
Student membership has been stronger in the last couple years.
Kunsang, whose mother and grandfather fled Tibet during the Chinese invasion in the 1950s and wound up in India, said the group has a grassroots focus and events like these help to spread awareness.
“[We] are fighting to get voices to the people inside of Tibet,” Kungsang said. “People talk about [an issue] and it sits in their mind. Our hope is to help [teach] others how to help.”
The primary reason for the event was to raise funds for Students for a Free Tibet. He said it is sometimes difficult to generate finances. This is the second time the organization has held events like this.
“This campus has a long, wonderful history of activism, [and] shreds of that permeate the thinking of some people [today],” said Ada Deer, lecturer in the School of Social Work and Director of the UW American Indian Studies program. UW was one of the two most active protesting campuses during the Vietnam conflict, she said.
Kunsang thinks many people who join Students for a Free Tibet are drawn to the pace and compassion of Tibet’s main religion, Buddhism.
“Many members [of the organization] have personally gone to Tibet and seen that the people there don’t have freedom of religion or speech,” Kunsang said. “I know a girl who said after visiting, ‘It’s saddening to see people afraid in their own country.’”
The keynote speaker Tuesday night was Jamyang Norbu, a well-known author and activist for the Tibet Resistance movement.
The four films showed covered topics ranging from the culture and difficulties of Tibetan people to the Central Intelligence Agency’s involvement with covert operations in Tibet.
“It gives me hope when people ask me, ‘What is this thing about?’” Kunsang said. “It is piece of mind to know others care for Tibet and want to work and sacrifice for the cause.”
